Language and Meaning

by Tom Pittman

Professionally, I am a computational linguist.

In the world of linguistics (the study of human languages), a computational
linguist is a linguist who uses computers -- usually in the sense of word
processors and databases to manipulate data otherwise organized, but increasingly
also with reference to sophisticated computer tools for doing linguistic
kinds of things such as analyzing the phonology of a previously undocumented
language. In that sense, I am a computational linguist because I am developing
computer software to facilitate Bible translation into remote languages.

In the world of computers, a computational linguist is a computer professional
who uses linguistic theories originally developed for the study of human
languages, but applies them to the artificial linguistic world of programming
languages. In that sense I am also a computational linguist, because my
PhD dissertation emphasized the preservation of correct semantics (meaning)
across the translation of computer programs from (just barely) human-readable
languages like Basic and C++ and Fortran and spreadsheets, into the arcane
ones and zeros of machine language. Semantics in this context signifies
that the program which the programmer envisioned and wrote, representing
the precise and sequential manipulation of text and/or numbers, should
in fact behave exactly as intended when the computer operates on those
numbers as directed by the translated machine language which is the only
language the computer understands.

The translation process effected by compilers in the computer environment
is exactly the same as the process the same word "translation" denotes
out there in the world of natural languages. The only difference is that
in the computer environment the languages are artificial and precisely
defined, while in the natural language world languages are ambiguous and
changing, and meaning tends to be only an approximation. Meaning is only
an approximation in the computer world also, but we pretend otherwise.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the nature of meaning and how
it is conveyed by the linguistic elements we use to that end. I can identify
three such linguistic elements, which for this paper I will identify as
Syntax,
Semantics,
and Context. I intend to look at these elements
in effecting the transmission of a Message from
the mind of the Author (or speaker; the medium of transmission is irrelevant
to the consideration here) to the mind of the Reader (or listener), without
any prejudice as to whether either party is in fact a machine. Of course
the "mind" of a machine is somewhat metaphorical, and refers more precisely
to the effect of the Message on the physical conditions (hardware and software)
driven by that message in the case of a computer Reader, or else the physical
conditions (sensors, other software) whose interaction generates the message
in the case of a computer Author.

Message

It is the nature of the message that it is intended to communicate something
from the Author to the Reader not previously known by the Reader. Intentionality
is important here, but in the case of a computer Author, we reach through
the programming to the intents of the programmer who wrote the program
acting as Author, or the engineer who designed the physical elements causing
or creating the Message. Thus a pressure dial on a steam boiler communicates
a message in pounds per square inch because the engineer who designed the
boiler determined that the operator needs to know that pressure.

A graphing calculator generates a message which is a curve on its x-y
coordinate screen because the user intended to see the shape of that curve
and therefore entered the terms of the formula into the program; furthermore,
the programmer who wrote the calculator firmware intended to make that
curve visible to the user, as did the engineer who designed the pixels
of the screen to be controlled by the firmware. The Author of the particular
curve is the user who chose the terms, but the Author of the visual message
carrying that curve was the programmer and engineer working together.

Some messages -- such as art and music -- communicate only nonverbal
emotions, for that is what the artist or musician intended. Some messages
-- particularly jokes -- are intentionally ambiguous: the clash between
the two senses of a pun is the nature of the message. Some messages can
carry multiple non-clashing meanings, such as a fine illuminated manuscript,
which contains both text (what the words say) and the artistic visual presentation
of the calligraphy and miniatures.

Syntax

Syntax refers to word placement, punctuation, and inflection, whatever
is required by the grammar of the language to produce well-formed sentences
which make sense in the Message. In English the pseudo-sentence "blue wind
in Hit the." is ungrammatical -- so much so that it is impossible to make
any sense of it. Nothing is communicated. English -- indeed most languages,
including most computer languages -- has enough redundancy built into the
syntactical requirements that many ungrammatical sentences can be partly
understood anyway. I had to put significant effort into constructing a
truly meaningless example here.

A more reasonable example is "The boy hit the girl" which has a different
meaning than exactly the same words in a slightly different order, "The
girl hit the boy". In other, more fully inflected, languages like Latin
or Greek, the word order is irrelevant to the basic meaning, because the
noun inflection (also considered part of the syntax) tells the Reader which
word is the perpetrator and which is the victim. In English we inflect
the noun only for plural and possessive case, but verbs are inflected for
aspect and tense, such as past or continuative.

In our boiler dial example, the position of the needle is the syntax.

Semantics

Semantics refers to the meaning of the words, typically the dictionary
sense. In the boiler example, it would be the numbers on the dial, which
thus assign a pressure value to the angle of the needle. Artistic or musical
messages might have no established semantics, if the artist is not intending
to evoke a particular emotion. Most artists do have that intent, so they
choose their colors or tones carefully to give the intended result. The
colors and tones are syntax, but the emotions are semantics. In different
contexts red can communicate an angry or cheerful emotion; blue usually
communicates peace.

Context

Context is whatever body of knowledge shared by the Author and the Reader,
and to which the Author makes implicit reference. This is best seen by
a couple of examples.

A man and his wife are packing to go on a trip. She tells him
that her carry-on valise is ready. He replies, "The car is open."

What message did he intend to communicate? Something about the state of
the vehicle? Hardly. She probably already knew that. He was inviting her
to carry the valise out to the car. The shared knowledge he implicitly
referred to is the fact that to go on a trip, you need to first move the
luggage from the house to the car, and if one of the two is otherwise occupied
(with his own packing), it is reasonable for the other to start carrying.

I recently finished reading Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon,
a novel about second- and third-order efforts to hide messages from prying
eyes. The first-order effort is to encrypt the message, but if the opponent
knows you are encrypting the message, he can use various known methods
to break the encryption. Then, of course, the attacker wants to keep the
primary agent from realizing that he is being spied upon, so he in turn
uses third-order strategems to conceal that fact. It makes a marvelously
complex story line. Not far from the end, the hero Randy has been thrown
into jail with his laptop computer in an poorly concealed effort to get
him to decrypt some vital information on his computer, which the opponent
is surrepticiously monitoring. Into the adjacent cell another character
-- sort of a guardian angel -- has managed to get himself thrown. He now
tells Randy:

With any luck, Randy, you and I can make a bridge
-- as long as you are just standing there pontificating anyway.
[p.785, author's italics]

The bridge, he subsequently tells Randy, refers to the game. The
point of this strange sentence has nothing at all to do with the dictionary
sense of any of the words -- not even the game of bridge. Its sole purpose
is to communicate to Randy that he should now begin the process of communicating
by means of an encryption technique called "Pontifex" previously sent to
him by email, which uses bridge hands in a card deck to encode and communicate
the decryption key, so as to conceal from the jailhouse eavesdroppers that
they are doing so.

In both of these communications, the entire message is contextual, in
one case as an abbreviation, and the other to hide its intent from third
parties.

These examples are extreme. Most of the time context provides only part
of the message. How large a part varies from time to time, and from context
to context, but never is it completely absent. Indeed, the dictionary both
Author and Reader carry in their heads, which defines the meaning of the
words (semantics), and the grammar of the language they communicate in
(syntax), are necessary and intrinsic parts of that context. Beyond that,
the additional communication context (including facial gestures and tone
of voice) disambiguates words with multiple senses.

Balance

Some people place the highest value on the context carried by nonverbal
channels such as facial expression, and expect it to override the plain
sense of the syntax and semantics; others (like myself) often try to capture
as much of the meaning as possible in the syntax and semantics, so that
context mostly becomes irrelevant. Even when context is intended to be
a large part of the message, if the shared information turns out to be
smaller than the Author expected, he might recover from the transmission
error by retransmitting the same message in a more context-free mode. In
the Stephenson novel, the key words were italicized to draw attention to
their contextual referents. When Randy expressed confusion, additional
material was added to emphasize the contextual intent. This was of course
mostly for the benefit of the novel's readership, so we would correctly
understand the message being communicated. Stephenson then goes on to describe
Randy's efforts to decrypt the first message received, so that nobody is
left in the dark. Thus Stephenson begins with a wholly contextual message,
which he repeats several times using more and more explicit semantics,
until nothing is left to context but the dictionary.

Legal documents by nature must leave as little as possible to context.
Otherwise some zealous judge may presume to invent a context the Author
did not intend. Poetry is often the reverse, where the poet seeks to evoke
a great deal of context in the mind of the Reader -- sometimes with odd
side effects. I think it was a Browning sonnet, when the poet was later
asked to explain it, he replied, "When I wrote that, only God and Robert
Browning understood it. Now only God does." [quoted in the Amazon
review of The Barretts of Wimpole Street]

I have a particular interest in Bible
translation. I studied Greek and Hebrew so better understand exactly
what the Author intended to communicate. Apart from a few badly
translated words of little consequence, most English Bible translations
are reasonably accurate. Very little is lost in translation. There is,
however, a certain amount of cultural context that the individual writers
(Author) assumed, which is not in the text. Most of the imagery in the
Apocalypse directly links to Old Testament texts. Thus the "Mark of the
Beast" (666) can be easily understood to have commercial implications when
you see that same number referring to the amount of gold imported into
Solomon's kingdom in one year within a context of runaway inflation. Similarly,
much of Jesus' ministry has implicit links to Old Testament prophecies.
Sometimes the gospel Authors recognize their Readers' unfamiliarity with
those references and directly cite them; other times the Reader is just
expected to figure it out. Mostly the Authors knew they were writing to
a general audience, so what they left to context is minimal.

I try to do the same with my writing. You need to know I'm a Christian,
so occasionally there will be a covert reference to the Bible in my writing.
Most of the time I eschew unstated context, and it annoys me when people
try to assume I will figure out the context in their cryptic communications.
Thus I tend to favor email over telephone calls, so there is no back-channel
contradicting the intended message. When somebody insistes on verbal communication
with me, it usually tells me that they are not thinking clearly and seek
the protection of "he said, she said" deniability for their blunders.